Post-Nothing
I have spent a large percentage of my life online, and it has left me exposed to different individuals over the years. I would find myself reading brilliant articles on football strategies by total unknowns, news reports from local media websites, and updates on news feeds on social networks.
Sometimes, I would find myself marveling at how fascinating some people think, how they write their words down and create solid pieces that spark debate among communities. Other times, I end up doing proverbial facepalms. Take YouTube videos, read the comments, and see what I mean. Take the RH Bill debates. Take voters who elect people based solely on catchy jingles and appeals to emotion.
I find the prevalence of stupid assumptions and illogical conclusions among our people a cause for concern.
I think it is time for change to be made regarding this side of society—a change that involves restructuring the educational system. Critical thinking and logic should be introduced at earlier ages in order to counteract blind belief and logical fallacies, something prevalent in our society due to the lack of quality education.
By making such subjects as essential as mathematics and the sciences, we’ll be creating a society of thinkers who believe in rigor and solid argumentation and who do not automatically assume that correlation equals causation. We need people who do not believe that supposed “facts” can stand on faith alone, researching and continually opening new perspectives with every new piece of information they procure.
The practicality of the said subjects should justify why they should be taught. By being exposed to the principles of logic, majority, if not, all activities that require thinking will be benefited. Thinking requires quantitative and qualitative data, and it is through the use of logic that one makes sense of this information. Data gives substance, but logic is required in order to derive results or demonstrate a point.
However, in order to truly educate individuals in our society, it is not enough to force-feed them with facts and book-based knowledge. It is how they apply this knowledge and how they reach conclusions from the said known variables to make decisions that matter the most.
The point is, we should encourage a culture of questioning rather than accepting, a culture of both thinking and doing.
How do we do this? We make it compulsory for people, especially students, to undergo such training. We coordinate with institutions of learning in order to implement such subjects in every school’s curriculum.
We’ll have more informed citizens, for sure. Not only that, but we’ll also have vigilant citizens concerned with creating and exploring the realm of ideas and theories. We’ll have individuals ready to face intellectual challenges, armed with the tools necessary to dive into the roots of society’s problems. We’ll have people who will both say and do.
Being open to radical ideas shouldn’t be considered a sin. Rather, we should put a premium on people who uphold such a stance—people who, I believe, will lead us to the ever-elusive change that we desire.
